


Sweet Silence

by MindfulExorcism



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls I
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief, Mourning, One-sided pining, This is what happens when you replay Dark Souls for the third time and get your heart broken anew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulExorcism/pseuds/MindfulExorcism
Summary: An account of things said (and unsaid) between two knights of Gwyn.
Relationships: Artorias the Abysswalker & Lord's Blade Ciaran
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Sweet Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Look I still can't defeat Sif without bawling ok
> 
> (No beta, we die like Manus. After about a dozen attempts.)

Ciaran shouldn’t have heard it. Nobody should have been able to hear it up in the high reaches of Anor Londo, where the walls blocked out all sound and the sun blotted out all that lay outside; but she heard it nonetheless, loud enough that she thought her ears would burst. 

Agony. Pure, human agony, undertoned and merging with something _monstrous_ — a legion of animalistic shrieking. It rattled the windowpanes of the castle, echoed through the walls of the city, much so that the guarding giants shifted uneasily, and the silver knights below her clamped their hands to their helms and quaked. 

Ciaran froze. The sound felt as though it had torn through her chest, much so that she nearly toppled from the window where she’d been lounging. She _knew_ that sound, marred though it was by pain and inhumanity. Over centuries, over countless battles, through fire and rain through light, fading and resurging. 

Artorias. 

There was little more to be said or done then, really. Ornstein has long gone; Gough was likewise elsewhere, and Ciaran was held by no obligation. She scrambled down the high wall, pitched off to the gates, and didn’t look behind her. 

* * *

There is little to say of Lord’s Blade Ciaran. She speaks to her origins with paucity; those who ask are met with silence, and those who press further are typically met with consequences more unfortunate. 

She was, perhaps, the most surprising of Gwyn’s four most honoured knights — not so much by her gender as her stature. It was no mistake that she stood more diminutively than her brethren (and Gough’s inclusion did little to improve this). If her comrades thought anything of this, they said nothing; her own lord mentioned it but once, and she remembered his words often. 

_“You art small, yet sharp,”_ he said. _“Thou art a hornet, and thy blade is mine._ ”

And so it was; and her tracers found the necks and backs of many a human and giant and dragon, and further and further she pushed herself away from her borne unworthiness. 

When she received a piece of Gwyn’s soul, in those dark and dying days before he departed for the kiln, and it lay seated in her chest so hot she felt as though she’d become flame, she thought: _Let it burn away my humanity._

* * *

It was, perhaps, strange that Gwyn’s wolf and blade would be closest to each other, out of his knights — Ornstein was more distant after his liege’s banishment, and Gough had always found more personal attachment with members of his own kind. Still, though, there was a covenant among the four knights that was close and unbreakable; and, even more, something between Ciaran and Artorias that felt more fleeting, unspoken though it was. 

It began in the early days, when the last scraps of dragon kind still ruled the skies in the wilder place. The four knights, newly-minted, would work as a unit — Gough would fell the target with an arrow, Ornstein would peel apart their stone scales, Artorias would tear through the belly and dodge the stamping legs and tail, and Ciaran — little, stinging Ciaran, with her sharp knives and her apt way of dancing around the desperate flames, would find the little soft spots that made the whole fight end quickly, with only a hiss and a shudder to show it. 

If there were moments, perhaps, in those rare stretches of calm, when Gough was off tracking their next kill, and Ornstein had gone ahead to charge his lightning spear, and it was just the wolf and the hornet in a clearing with a dead beast between them, and no sounds but quiet, well-earned breathing. She took pleasure in watching him, the sweet silence that stretched, the way his chest armour moved and heaved with every inhale. 

Very occasionally, he would take his helmet off, wiping the sweat from his brow, brushing back his dark hair and admiring the handiwork of their kill. And, now and again, he would glance over to her, admiration in his eyes. 

The first time Artorias did that, she felt, strangely, human. Human, put off-guard, vulnerable. 

And, strangely, appreciated — not for her status or title, but who she was. Ciaran the human, held in gratitude. 

She wasn’t sure what to make of it. It scared her, and for some time after that, the porcelain mask stayed on, and she would move quickly behind Ornstein, cleaning her blades and not looking back. 

And she would tell herself: _Now listen here, and you listen well, girl: You are a thing of death. You are a spectre; a sting, a gold twist in the air, a blade between armour plates, a cut to the vein. You are beyond humanity, beyond anything that could call itself your own — you are the hand of god. You are one of the four, an ember in the fire that stands between this world and oblivion. Think not but else, for a flame that stands on its own will surely perish, swallowed by its own solitude._

But, of course, it didn’t last. She found herself lingering again, when they could. Waiting. Watching. Telling herself that she never wished for a gaze like that again, while another part of her wanted it more than anything. 

She was still new to her knighthood, then. Protective of it, fearing that any slip she would make would be all the evidence needed to have everything she worked for so quickly snatched away. 

She recalled the first time Artorias spoke to her directly, in such a way that wasn’t simply an order or mere battlefield communication. It was during one of those quiet moments, then, which she noticed had been increasing with some frequency; though by whose machinations, she could not place. 

He’d turned to her, and she expected him to glance back at the corpse or remark that they should retreat to the base camp, when he asked:

“Thy mask,” he said. “Wherefore… dost thou put such adornments upon it?”

She was caught off guard, truth be told, but she made no bodily indication of it. Instead, she simply touched the ivory locks fastened to the porcelain, so long they’d been there, that she’d nearly forgotten. 

The knife had been cold against her scalp, on the day Gwyn had appointed her head of the Lord’s Blades. Hair was a cumbersome thing, even moreso for a woman. There’d be no time to care for it on the field, she told herself; and in a close fight, it would only be a liability. She should not have mourned it. But some small part of her was loathe to toss it into the fire. 

“‘Tis but a reminder,” she said, simply.

* * *

As the endless-seeming battles with the dragons ebbed, so too did the interactions between the knights of Gwyn. Still, now and again, she and Artorias would time to spar. 

It was a spectacle, indeed, for a nine-foot-tall god-born to battle someone of Ciaran’s issue. The first time he’d suggested it, she nearly laughed — perhaps he believed it entertainment on a pleasant spring’s afternoon. 

But, Gwyn bless him, he actually went in with full mettle — alert and raring, as though he were battling an archdragon alone. Ciaran, whose time had been mostly occupied with managing the subordinate blades, took to it with an odd glee. 

Artorias fought like water — diving, weaving, adapting to her dodges and blocks almost as soon as she enacted them. She, in turn, found herself adjusting to his own tactics as she went, compensating for the disparity in strength with speed and grace. 

They dueled, back and forth, for the better part of an hour; it was only then that Ciaran saw an opening, fleeting, as the knight rebalanced himself from a mighty swing. 

Her feet were upon his back in an instant. He swerved, attempted to throw her off, but still she clung on, and soon her arms were over his shoulders and her blade at his neck. 

He smelled of sweat and leather, she realized; a scent that was not entirely disagreeable to her. 

“Got you,” she whispered. 

Artorias froze. Slowly, she removed the edge of her tracer from his skin. 

Only then did he let out a laugh, booming, exasperated. Ciaran slid off without another word — . the knight was grinning when he turned to her, shaking his head. 

“So thou hast!” Artorias said. “Thy skills remain sharp, Blade. ‘Twas an honour to be bested by thee.”

The porcelain mask hid her smile, which Ciaran was thankful for. “Merely chance,” she said, bowing. “I’ve not had a better fight in some time.”

* * *

So it went. Their matches were infrequent, though Ciaran relished every one of them. Their paths crossed more seldomly, and it was the only proper time she would spend with him, speaking only with motion, and with the small comments of strategy and due praise in the aftermath. 

Afterwards, they’d sit in the gardens, cooling from the exertion, merely be next to one another, unspeaking. Like all those times in battle, letting the sweet silence stretch between them. 

In those times, even with her armour and weapons and face-cover, Ciaran felt strangely naked. It seemed, oddly, he did not see her as Ciaran the Hornet Knight of Gwyn, or Ciaran the Lord’s Blade, or even Ciaran the Warrior; instead, she felt like Ciaran the Human, and all the more miraculous for it. 

She did not know what to think of it. 

* * *

Things, perhaps, came more slowly over the centuries; if Artorias looked forward to their meetups with more than his usual friendly enthusiasm, he did not say anything. 

Ciaran did not allow herself room to ponder. Her energy was always devoted elsewhere — to training her Blades, to tracking her next target, to organizing the guard for that wretched painting. 

But still, she’d catch him when she could. Watch him from the rooftops that were like a second home to her; see the way he’d patrol the grounds, practice his swordwork.

How he’d spoken with Ornstein, voice low and calm, the day Anor Londo was left with only three gods to worship, and said a name that was meant to be long dead and buried. 

How he’d brought in a wolf-pup, bedraggled and half-dead, refusing all implorations to put the thing back in the woods, or at least out of its misery, and instead nursed it and trained it and took it wherever he went.

There was always a sense of duty about him. She didn’t know where it came from. She, of course, was loyal to Gwyn to a fault — her title was something she guarded fiercely, for that she’d had to claw out with wits and skill from less than nothing — but from Artorias it seemed to come from someplace deeper. 

Perhaps it was that his heart lacked any dark within it. Perhaps her own flaw, despite a bit of Lord Soul glowing within her, made Ciaran more susceptible to doubt. This, she did not allow herself room to ponder, either. 

She didn’t think of it when the nights grew longer; she didn’t ponder this when the moon seemed to replace the sun, and the fires in the castle burned colder, and there were whispers that the First Flame was soon to die, and the abyss would come and swallow everything like a great black sea; or when Lord Gwyn called his knights into his chamber and spoke of such things as reversible. 

And when the God of Sunlight left Anor Londo, leaving the barracks cold and empty and the hallways devoid, and when the sun returned with an unspoken reply to an unspoken question, she had turned to Artorias, while they watched the dawn rise for the first time in years, and asked:

“What will we do now?”

And he’d simply bowed his head, expression hidden by his hood. And he’d said:

“As we must.”

* * *

And this was how Ciaran found herself standing by the open gates to an empty world and an emptier city, wondering which one felt more vicious. 

“Already, Oolacile lays half-devour’d,” Atorias said. “It can wait no longer.”

She had simply nodded. This was, after all, what he must. 

“If I…” he started. “If I am not to return…”

“Don’t say such things,” she said, perhaps a little more sharply than intended. “Are you not one of the four?”

(If there were even four, at that point. No space to ponder.)

She sighed. “Simply… return here safely. I have that conviction in you.”

He’d smiled then — softly, sweetly. In such a way she’d noticed, over time, he’d reserved for her, and her alone. 

“Thou art remarkable, Ciaran,” he said. “In every aspect of thine.”

Though her face was hidden by her mask, Ciaran still turned away. Ironic, really, that Artorias was the only person who could disarm her so — and perhaps more ironically that some strange part of her welcomed it. 

She almost wished, at that moment, that she could; pull off her porcelain covering, run to him, tell him not to go, tell him what she felt of him. 

But she couldn't. He'd never obey such a request, and, in any case, such things were not for the likes of her to say. 

Or, indeed, have.

So instead, she turned back to him, bowing her head slightly as a knight to a comrade, and said: 

"May your journey be well."

And then, nothing. Only an empty city, an open gate, and stretching silence. 

* * *

Ciaran didn’t stop moving towards Oolacile until she reached its very edges; countless cities and roads she passed by, a dark-blue blur against the landscape, going off of only sheer terror and the piece of Lord’s Soul that burned within her. 

She only paused when she reached the outskirts, looking into the kingdom valley. She hadn’t been there in centuries, not since the aftermath of the dragon campaigns; though she expected, of course, that the place would change, the sight she beheld rattled her to her core. 

In the center of the city was a hole — now, rather, a maw. Black, gnawing, a pool that threatened to swallow all around it like a terrible evil eye. The Abyss, burst forth and slowly swelling, bleeding dark onto the pale stones of Oolacile.

She froze. Surely he’d stopped the tide by now.

No. No time to think. She couldn’t follow him into the dark, of course, but if he was elsewhere…

Ciaran descended, finding footpaths down the mountainside. Even the Royal Wood, she noticed, was sprouting cracks and chasms that oozed dark; thus, she gave it a wide berth, aiming for the old coliseum that marked the entrance to the city proper. 

It was quiet. No birds sang when she landed in the little cleaning before the edifice. The sun, weak and watery, shone dimly through the trees, but not even wind stirred a rustle from their leaves. 

Something was off. Slowly, silently, Ciaran removed the tracers from her side, angling them so that the light did not glint on them until the moment was right; then, with silent tread, she stepped into the arena. 

She first noticed the body just beyond the threshold — head bloated and swollen, dotted with dozens of eyes, deformed limbs splayed outwards in its awkward repose. Ciaran recoiled internally — _is this what Oolacile has been infested with?_ — before turning her attentions to the coliseum interior.

Blood. Dark and warped, but the texture and spray were the same. It was spilt over the floor and splashed on the walls, as though something had dragged itself in and been forced to spill more. There were deep scrapes and grooves on the floor — places where something bladed had struck with great force. 

Her eyes followed the scrapes. They were rhythmic — consistent in their pattern, but at an awkward angle, as though their maker had been wielding a weapon with an arm they weren’t used to…

_No._

Hands tighter on her tracers, Ciaran stepped forward. She could see something glinting — a blade, blackened and broken, hidden all too easily under the blood. Though it was scarred and chipped, she could recognize it all too easily. She clashed against it many a time, seen it plunge into a dragon or darkwraith’s side, when it was still clean and whole and new. 

And, next to it, smashed and cracked and eaten away, lay a helmet — bloodstained, bearing a single dark plume, and empty. 

* * *

It was quiet in the little arena. The roof had cracked some time ago, letting in a shaft of sunlight on a spot untainted by blood. It was here that Ciaran dragged a few pieces of rubble, pushing one up so it stood taller than the rest, and kept it upright with a little pile of stones. 

The helmet she could not save; as soon as she lifted it, it crumbled in her hands. The plume, however, remained, and this she lay on the ground before the makeshift little grave. 

To it, she added a white flower — one from greenery outside, still untouched by the dark. It was soppy thing to do, really. But it somehow, looking back at all those moments she’d find him in the garden, it felt right. 

The blade managed to stay intact, though it was still half-shattered. This, she laid beside her. 

Ciaran kneeled in front of the makeshift little grave. The sight itself felt almost blasphemous — he was a knight, a knight of _Gwyn_. He should have had a caravan of honour take his body back to Anor Londo; a marble tomb, a plaque telling of his deeds; how he quelled the tide of the Abyss and saved Princess Dusk, and then given a eulogy to be remembered by gods and men and giants alike. 

But there’d be no such thing. Anor Londo was a corpse. Princess Dusk was gone, likely warped into a monstrosity. The gods had abandoned Lordran, and soon, the dark would overtake another slice of it. Even Sif was absent, hopefully off to some part of the woods and not left behind in some obscure corner of Oolacile. Never — his master would not allow that. 

Ciaran closed her eyes. What could she even say? Artorias was gone. Whatever she wished to tell him, he could never hear it. And even if he did, it would make no difference.

And so she stayed there, her mask hiding her closed, damp eyes, and waited in silence. 

* * *

She tensed when she heard footsteps, though perhaps not as much as she should have. It did not sound like the stance of something coming to attack her; then again, if it were, she wondered if she would even fight back.

The footsteps stopped. Ciaran glanced up. 

It was a human — clad in a simple knight’s armour, no less, though she could see the hollowed skin through their visor. It seemed the undead curse managed to afflict Oolacile as well, wretched as its fate was. 

She was about to ignore them, go back to her prayer, when she noticed something about them. A subtle strength, glowing from within… a warm presence they held, greater and more lordly than any human could ever dream to bear…

_The easy smile from under his hood, kind and reassuring…._

_Strength from both might and his courage… a devotion to duty, greater than anyone she’d ever known…_

_Love. Love for all around him, human, god, wolf, or otherwise… he’d loved things simply for existing, for being under the sun’s light…_

She breathed in sharply. “That soul,” she said, quietly. “Is that not the soul of the man who fell on this spot?”

She waited. The undead, at first, did not answer; and then, slowly, they nodded. 

She breathed in again. “He was... a dear friend. I wish to pay proper respect with that soul. Would you be willing to part with it?”

She waited once more. Of course they would refuse — even asking was presumptuous; Artorias himself would likely disapprove, shake his head and claim the victor rightfully deserved their prize. She could feel herself curling inward, carefully crafting the measured response.

To her surprise, however, the undead instead reached inside the pack, and pulled forth a soul. It was dark, flickering against day’s brightness with almost frightening contrast; but its center still glowed bright and clean as, she suspected, it always had. 

Wordlessly, the undead held it out to her. She took it, feeling its warmth in her hands, carrying it as though she would something fragile. 

“Thank you,” she breathed, bowing her head by a little. “You are very kind.”

Carefully, holding the soul in one hand, she unhooked her tracers from her belt, one by one, and held them out. 

“Take these,” she said. “I will no longer be needing them.”

The undead complied, their expression unseeable behind their metal helm. Still, they said nothing; and silence stretched between them, in that moment, neither of them moving or speaking. 

Somehow, the silence felt like a question — one that Ciaran could not begin, or bear, to answer.

She did not ask how he’d died. The scream had been one of rage — rage, sorrow, agony. Inhuman, yet with enough of his voice to be a painful mockery. She did not need — nor want — any further confirmation. 

And then, without any further word, the undead turned and left, leaving Ciaran alone with her thoughts. 

* * *

She did not stay by the grave much longer than that. Instead, she absconded to the higher levels of the area, where she could get a better vantage. The undead passed through the place many times after that, sword in hand, off to some place she could not determine. She did not bother them; though she noticed, with some relief, that they took care not to disturb the makeshift tombstone. 

She was alone, for much of the time. Perhaps not exactly — there was still the soul, which she never let out of her sight, resting in her lap. 

She’d seen souls like this before. The dragons had left them behind, and they were usually carted away to be fused into weapons or for Seath to dissect. The essence, she’d heard, still remained — the memories and strength and even the personality of its holder, if their power was great enough. 

Perhaps, somehow, he _could_ hear her. In some form. She could sense him, after all — almost as though he were sitting right beside her — though faintly. 

And if he couldn’t…

Ah, it didn’t matter. And she didn’t care. 

And so she spoke, in a voice barely above a whisper, of many things. Of how the sun dappled through the cracks in the roof. Of how the flowers outside glowed in the day’s light; of Anor Londo, how cold it was without him, without Ornstein, since he’d left on that impossible mission. Of the faint robin-screeches she heard now and again, so much like Gough carving his archwood tree heads. 

(Now and again, she thought it might be him — she’d hear a sigh like a great wind, a creak like a great weight shifting itself — but she told herself it wasn’t. If it was, she didn’t think she’d be able to face the giant ever again.)

After some time, she found she was talking of herself — of her home, half-forgotten among all the years, of her first knighthood, of the songs her mother used to sing when the morning sun rose…

Of when she first saw him. Of the moments, large and small, when it had been just the two of them, and dragons or gods or anything else didn’t truly matter, because he was there, right next to her...

She sighed, then, feeling that tight sensation catch in her chest again. What if she _had_ said something? She could have in the garden, or on the battlefield, or any of those other times. She could have — _should have_ — said it centuries ago, and maybe had centuries more. 

But that was not the case. There was only now. There was only a ruined arena, blood on the stone, darkness slowly eating the land around them. Too late, too late. _Stupid girl._

“I loved you,” she said, her voice even. “I loved you for all of then. I don’t know if you knew. Perhaps we were cowards, the both of us. But if anything, I am a greater coward than you.”

She paused. “And I still love you now. But that makes no difference.”

The soul flickered. She could not tell if there was any difference in its movement, and she did not delude herself into thinking it so. Instead, she settled for its continued, peaceful silence. 

* * *

_This_ scream, while it rattled the building and shook stones down and nearly dislodged Ciaran from her perch, was not the same as she heard before — not quite, really. It was more animal, more primeval, though still full of rage and pain and sorrow; and when it ended, it was as though a weight from the place had been lifted, an oppressive cold fleeing, and the air suddenly became more breathable again. 

Soon after, she saw the undead pass through the arena once more, dark still trailing around them. They stopped, briefly, and kneeled in front of the grave, before departing once more. 

And Ciaran thought: _So it is done._

She was about the descend from her perch when she saw movement again out of the corner of her eye; she tensed, regretting she’d given up her weapons, though more for the sake of the soul in her hands than the one in her body. 

A shaggy shape, four-legged, walking slowly, painfully limped into the arena. Its head hung low, it sniffed the ground as it went; when it saw her up in rafters, its tail rose, setting into a tired wag. 

“Sif!” Ciaran cried, landing on the ground with ease. “That human… did it harm you?”

The wolf snorted. Only then did Ciaran see the burns on its fur — telltale scorches from dark, though not as severe as they should have been. 

She noticed the glint in the wolf’s teeth — a small ring, greenish-gold. 

“The covenant,” she said. “Such a thing must be hidden away…”

Sif bowed his head low, setting his weight on his haunches and looking at something on the ground. 

Ciaran followed his gaze. Artorias’ sword was still where it lay, dark and broken. 

She nodded, slowly, understanding. She lifted the blade in her hand, still heavy despite its damage, and held the glowing soul in her hand next to it. 

“I will stay by your side,” she murmured. “Protect this. Protect Sif. Protect the gateway to the dark. If we are lucky, that shall be enough to hold it at bay.”

The soul didn’t respond at first. Then, slowly, it shifted, drifting towards the blade and letting itself fuse with it. 

She watched, entranced, as the sword became whole and bright again, its edge sharp, its length unbroken. _Nary a murmur of Dark within him_ , it was once said. This, after all things, at least still held true.

When the blade was healed, glowing with light once more, she held it out to the wolf in front of her. Sif took it in his teeth, balancing with ease, before bowing his head low. 

She looked to the grave again, and then to Oolacile beyond. The center of the Abyss was gone, but the tide had yet to reach its peak. 

“Come,” she said, regarding the grave once more with a pang of sadness. “What is done is done. Now all that is left is duty.”

And with that, the wolf and the woman turned, headed off towards the royal gardens, leaving the bloodstained arena behind them.

* * *

Ciaran was correct in her assessment. Slowly, dark oozed out and over the chasm, swallowing what was left of the city of Oolacile and otherwise before ebbing once more, leaving behind naught but flotsam. 

There was another grave, eventually, built far larger and more grandly in the old sanctuary. It stood, even as the forest changed and shifted; as the old statues and ruins of Oolacile crumbled even further, as trees felled and the river flow changed and the sun grew fainter and fainter. 

And there Ciaran stayed, always in the shadows, always at Sif’s side. She watched the mourners come and go; watched as kings and knights alike left their weapons in remembrance, whispering a tale that only a few knew as false. 

There were some, of course, who were fool enough to seek the secret of abysswalking. Sif, who against all odds continued to grow well past his allotted size, finished them off tidily enough. Now and again Ciaran would handle them on her own, when she was inclined to. 

When old Alvina caught wind of their fights, there were visitors fewer, to the point where those who made it to the grave did not return; and then, eventually, there were none that came at all. 

That suited Ciaran. It was quiet in the little grove. She said little, if anything; she was content to watch the days and nights slip by, and the nights grow longer and the sun grow colder with each passing year. 

There was one time she could recall speaking; it was on the day that the sun didn’t rise at all, and a perpetual dusk settled over the forest, the confused crickets chirping and chirping and chirping for hours on end. She smiled, then; bitterly, cold as the air settling on her skin. 

And she said: “ _How about it, Abyss Walker? Let us watch the world end together.”_

* * *

Ciaran was dying. This came as no surprise; the fire inside her was fading as quickly as the sun had, and soon after the perpetual twilight began, she felt the stiffness begin to creep across her. 

It took time, of course. Enough to make peace. Enough to regret. Enough, unfortunately, to ponder. 

(She’d been sent off to kill a heretic once, she recalled, who’d been going around blaspheming against Nito, claiming that all souls went to a great ash shrine upon death, far away from the gods to be reunited with the departed. This was nonsense, of course — it would be like saying the universe all went spiraling into one big drain, never to be seen again, instead of circling back and staying within.)

(Somehow, however, there was a part of her that wished the blasphemy was true, for reasons she refused to say aloud.)

Sif stayed by her, as always, waking her in the approximate morning, forcing her to get up and move. Fruitless, all of it, and she told him so; but still, he tried. Such was the hound of his master. 

One day, however, she could rise no longer; and her arms felt like lead and her body felt like stone, and her soul was burning, burning, burning away, to an ember that would snuff before the false day was done; and that was all that would be. 

She was leaning back against the grave, staring out over the river that ringed the place. She couldn’t see much beyond the trees — not that there was much to see. Anor Londo was behind her, in every sense of the term, and she had neither the strength not the inclination to turn around. 

She wondered, briefly, where Gough had gone. Perhaps he was still carving archwood to this day, with nary a dragon to hunt or occupy him. 

She wondered if Ornstein had ever found his king. One time, she had laughed at the idea. Now, she could only hope he’d succeeded. 

She heard the sound of soft pawprints beside her, and then felt a _whoosh_ of displaced air as Sif slumped beside her, his nose touching her knee. Weakly, she raised an arm, resting it on his snout. There was a glint of metal on her finger, which she steadfastly ignored. 

(She still kept her hornet ring, after all these years. She’d come close, many a time, to throwing it away, letting it splash into the river that ringed the grave place; but she always stopped herself at the last minute. _Let it be known,_ she thought, _when my corpse is found, that a Knight of Gwyn and a coward was I, and that I laid here.)_

She sighed. “Sif,” she said, her voice cracked from years of misuse. “Dear… Artorias…”

Fainter, fainter. The world was growing dark, perhaps as it was always meant to be. And she, once a servant of the light, embraced it. 

“At… your…side... I… remain…”

There would always be things unsaid. Then again, maybe she never needed to say them. 

“Always...”

And then there was nothing. Only a wolf in the clearing; a sword, plunged into the ground, sharp and mighty and bright as the man who had once wielded it; a body, mask cast aside, a sad and easy smile stretched across its lips as it looked towards the long-gone sun…

And silence. Sweet, lasting, loving silence. 


End file.
